


Energy for Fs (and other things)

by Westgate (Harkpad)



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Graduate School AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-28
Updated: 2014-11-28
Packaged: 2018-02-27 07:57:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2685161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harkpad/pseuds/Westgate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint has a stack of history papers from freshman to grade, and he really doesn't want to do it. Bruce provides incentive. A short graduate school AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Energy for Fs (and other things)

**Author's Note:**

> This was posted on tumblr originally, but I thought that, since there aren't ever enough Bruce/Clint stories over here, I'd share it here as well. Originally for hawkcycle, who is a fellow teacher also overwhelmed with too many essays to grade.

“’Go to graduate school’ you said. ‘You’ll kick ass,’ you said. ‘It’ll be fun,’ you said,” Clint muttered into Bruce’s shoulders as he rested his forehead on Bruce’s warm neck. He was so tired. His body felt heavy and his eyes just wanted to keep slamming shut. His hand was even sore.

“I don’t think I ever said anything about it being fun,” Bruce replied as he stirred a pot on the stove of their tiny, dimly lit shoebox of a kitchen. “That would be misleading.”

Clint heard the smile in Bruce’s voice and wrapped his arms around his waist, squeezing. “Yeah, ‘cause you wouldn’t mislead me to get me to follow you to this godforsaken school in the middle of a cornfield.” He propped his chin on Bruce’s shoulder and eyed the hearty stew Bruce was making.

“It’s one of the best schools in the nation, Clint.”

“Best at driving me insane, you mean.” He sighed, and then he _might’ve_ slipped into a whine. “I don’t wanna grade any more freshman Western Civ essays, Bruce. I hate them.”

“Clint.”

“They’ve never heard of an apostrophe, Bruce. A bunch of them have never heard of a paragraph, apparently. Or a citation, for that matter. I hate it.” He buried his head in Bruce’s neck again, but Bruce pushed back against him and turned so he was facing Clint.

“You should have gone into Physics. Far fewer papers at that level. Career choices, Clint. You made them.” He smiled, and there was a light in his eyes that he _only_ got when he spoke to Clint.

Clint knew this because he had spent four years of undergrad watching Bruce’s face very, very carefully. He knew it could turn to rage at the drop of a hat, and he knew it could glare someone into stepping back a few steps, but he also knew Bruce’s smiles, the way he looked at his friends like Tony or Natasha with fondness and exasperation.

He also knew the looks only there for him. The smirk that told Clint that Bruce was hoping for a kiss, the smile that told Clint how proud Bruce was of him, the crinkle around his eyes that told Clint how completely happy he was when Clint was around. Clint was a Bruce expert.

“I couldn’t be a Physics expert or any sort of scientist and you know it. Making up for years of no formal school was possible in the humanities. Not so much in math or languages or science. History I get.” He paused and took a deep breath.  “History papers written by eighteen year-olds, I hate. Hate. Hate,” he said, but Bruce stopped his mouth with a kiss, bit Clint’s lower lip gently, licked into Clint’s mouth with a playful thrust, and sucked his tongue firmly enough to make Clint’s brain go completely offline.

Bruce pulled back and licked his own lips. “I know you hate it,” he said quietly. “But you have to do it, and you’re halfway through the stack. Take a break and have some stew and then you can finish. I know you can.”

Clint looked over Bruce’s shoulder at the stew. “Did you really make me stew at eleven o’clock at night?”

Bruce shrugged and reached over to pull a couple bowls from the cupboard. “It’s better than junk food. It’ll give you energy.”

Clint chuckled and stepped back, pulling a bowl from Bruce’s hands. “Energy for F’s. Energy to add fifteen apostrophes to every paper and make a fuckton of little paragraph symbols and citation notes. Thanks, Bruce,” he said, and stepped around to spoon some stew into his bowl.

Bruce pressed a kiss to Clint’s neck as he waited his turn. “Energy to get through the papers and still have some energy left to burn off with me,” he whispered.

“Oh my god,” Clint groaned. “ _Too_  distracting. Now I’ll never finish.”

“Oh,” Bruce said in a light voice. “You’re a pretty determined guy. Pretty focused when you have to be. I have faith in you.”

“Yeah,” Clint said with a sigh as he sat down at their dining room table and picked up his purple glitter pen, “I don’t have faith in these morons.”

“You were a moron, too, at that age. So was I. Our Professors and T.As didn’t die from reading our essays.”

Clint glared at Bruce for a moment and then looked down at the next essay on the stack. “You have not seen these essays,” he muttered.

Bruce didn’t answer, just set a glass of milk down in front of Clint, pressed a kiss to his cheek, and said, “I’m just going to go enter the Scantron-graded tests my kids took this afternoon into the gradebook. You have fun.”

“I hate you,” Clint replied. “Hate. You.”

“Grade your papers, Clint. I’m waiting.”

Clint grinned and threw Bruce a smug wink. “I’m worth the wait and you know it,” he said, and then turned back to the stack of papers. One apostrophe and citation mistake at a time. He could do it.

Bruce was waiting.

 


End file.
